The contest invited readers to re-define the word featured this week using
20 letters. The best part of the contest was reading so many creative entries.
The hard part was having to select winners from so many excellent entries.

The winners, in no particular order, are:

polyphiloprogenitive: Missing the organ stops
(Why did JS Bach have so many children? Because his organ didn't have any stops.)
Douglas Rathbun, Washington, DC (douglas rathbun.net)

Thanks to all the readers who took part in the contest by sending 20-letter
definitions of the words. Did you notice, the term "twenty characters long" itself
is 20 letters long?

Some readers misinterpreted the instructions: a few sent their own 20-letter
words, some interpreted the contest to mean 20 letters or fewer, some sent
anagrams of the words, one reader sent 20-word definitions, and so on.

Read on for a selection of the entries that were, in fact, 20 letters long.

A double dactyl from John Hollander & Anthony Hecht's delightful collection
of the light verse form, Jiggery-Pokery. From memory:

Higamous, Hogamous
Thomas Stearns Eliot
Wrote a whole poem to
Carry one word.

What was it now? Poly-
Philoprogenitive.
I do not like it. I
Think it absurd.

Absent my copy of the collection, I do not remember the double dactyl's
author. The poem referred to in the verse is Eliot's "Mr. Eliot's Sunday
Morning Service" in which he seemingly coined the word by adding "poly"
to the already existent "philoprogenitive."

I lived in a company town in Washington State and we had a street referred
to as Silk Stocking Row. The houses in this row were assigned to supervisors,
managers, and out-of-town VIPs from city government back in the day. The house
assignments are no longer adhered to, but the name Silk Stocking Row has
continued on.

Hard to believe it's been twenty years, but you should know that we readers
are well aware all that BS&T have been gifts offered daily to all of us who
open up the email hoping, among all the day's crises, for a modicum of
education, entertainment, and the sheer joy of words (and this from a CPA,
go figure). Thank you!

John O. Wolcott, Darien, Connecticut

From: Irving N. Webster-Berlin (awadreviewsongs gmail.com)
Subject: Song based on this week's words

Here are this week's AWAD Review Songs (words and recordings) for your
listening and viewing pleasure.

Irving N. Webster-Berlin, Sacramento, California

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Time changes all things: there is no reason why language should escape this
universal law. -Ferdinand de Saussure, linguist (1857-1913)